Category Archives: Scotland

In a VA Country Garden – –

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Jack misses by a day – or as his economics professor would say ‘reverts to the mean’ – –

I have always disliked gardening. I used to think it was a hellish Calvinist punishment for past or future sins. That was probably mainly because I lived in west Fife for the first sixty years of my life where the ground is solid clay and only good for weeds. But when Wendy and I married we moved to east Fife where the soil is completely different, fertile and easily worked. So in our very small back yard we successfully grew vegetables for the first time. It was still hard work but at least with results!

When we moved here last year we found we’d inherited a vegetable garden that only appeared to have some rhubarb and raspberries in it. But we did notice that the previous owners had carefully planted lots of different flowers around the place very thoughtfully and they matured at different times through the year.

That should have hinted at something – –

With the uncertainty of the Covid 19 situation and the resultant notion of trying to be a bit more self-sufficient, we set up tanks around the house to capture rainwater and then turned our attention to the vegetable garden.

When we started preparing the ground we discovered a layer of black garden cloth everywhere so we pulled it all up and threw it away. Only later did we discover why it was there. Our yard has a number of big mature black walnut trees and they send out fine tendrils from their roots that are death to a number of vegetables. Despite that we were able to grow onions, peas, asparagus and a few other things. We also have a fresh crop of rhubarb and raspberries. Our tomatoes are either in grow-bags or as far away from the walnut trees as possible.

The other big job was converting our wee shed into a chicken coop for Thelma and Louise and that was another heavy bit of work.

So we are slowly learning what works and what doesn’t – next time the peas need to be staked better, the potatoes need to be in isolated raised beds and more of the tomatoes need to be in grow-bags.

Dear Deere – – –

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Jack doesn’t quite make it on time with the Wednesday post – –

The story starts when I was asked/pressured by the Prinicipal of the college where I was working, to get an MBA. I had been teaching management courses for a while so hardly surprising. I enrolled for the part-time program at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. One of the courses was Economics and our lecturer focused on two case studies each week that we were meant to research before the following week. His favorite ploy was to march back and forward at the start of the day (which ran from 8am to 6pm) talking about the previous week’s case studies, twirl on his heel and point at some hapless fool. I always hid behind a pillar!

Most of the thirty or so folk signed up simply wanted to pass the exam, but our professor had announced at the start that he wasn’t interested in that. He would introduce us to ‘interesting stuff’ instead! There weren’t enough pillars in the room either.

Of course numbers dwindled until on the final day there were only two of us present so nowhere to hide. The previous week’s case studies had been Hewlett-Packard and John Deere. I’d had a very challenging week at the college (Head of two departments simultaneously), so no opportunity to do any research. He turned and pointed at me, so I was under the spotlight all day with no escape.

Around the same time Wendy and I were planning to get married so I visited her folks in Tennessee. I told this story to her mom, who couldn’t understand a word I said – except for two – John Deere. She imagined I was a fan, so for a few years all my birthday, Christmas and anniversary presents were of a theme – the mug, bath mat, bedspread, cap, model – – –

We lived for five years in a very small village in East Fife and got friendly with a farming couple nearby. When we finally moved away we donated some furniture to them. Alan came down in his tractor and cattle trailer to collect them. It was his brand new massive John Deere!

So I got my picture taken sitting on his tractor, wearing the hat, holding the mug, with the bath mat on my knee and the model on the mud wing.

We made our annual visit to Tennessee and Wendy needed her Walmart ‘fix’ but when we were wandering around we found to our horror there was a whole isle devoted to John Deere stuff! So I showed the picture to Wendy’s Mom and re-told her the whole story now that we could meet midway linguistically- I’ve never gotten a John Deere present from her since.